FROZEN
October 21, 2010
Madcap Theatre, Milton Keynes, until Saturday, October 23
THERE’S certainly no shortage of ambition in this small-scale, big-hitting professional production tucked away in the backwaters of Milton Keynes.
On the face of it, Bryony Lavery’s 1998 play dissecting the motives and make-up of a serial child killer has the makings of a heavy evening. And whatever you feel about the playwright’s arguments – personally I find them simplistic and highly questionable – there’s no denying the dramatic possibilities of such a dark, complex subject.
Director Rosemary Hill, whose company The Play’s The Thing is staging this production in the Madcap Theatre community venue in Wolverton, plunders these possibilities for all they’re worth. Played out on a stark, simple set (Kevin Jenkins), the piece – which is mostly a series of self-justifying monologues – builds to an affecting conclusion.
Much of the credit for the depth and power of the evening must go to the three impressive performers, who take the raw material and wrangle from it some emotional meaning to leaven the psychological analysis. Drew McKenzie makes the killer Ralph a vulnerable loner, sympathetic if never quite understandable.
Helen Dickens, as the mother of one of his victims, has the toughest journey, from the agony of her 10-year-old daughter’s disappearance to the unemotional forgiveness of the perpetrator 20 years later. It’s a journey she accomplishes with a combination of inner steel and a delicate touch of humour and pathos.
Erika Sanderson, as the American forensic psychologist whose study of Ralph provides the framework for the action, offers a carefully judged blend of professional rectitude and personal collapse. Indeed, of all the characters, hers is the one who most neatly fits the title of the play, frozen as she is in a single moment of her life from which she is seeking escape, just as much as the killer or victim.
It’s no easy ride, but the company deserves acclaim for the attempt, and the bravery of staging such difficult and unapproachable work with such a strong result is a major achievement in itself.
THE HABIT OF ART
October 19, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, October 23, 2010, then tour continues
THE older Alan Bennett gets, the grumpier he seems to become. This revered national treasure has shifted his ground from the early Beyond the Fringe days of witty satire to an elder statesman’s pontificating on everything from actors’ neuroses to homophobic intolerance.
He retains the elegant ability to wrap up biting comment in gentle humour, but the emphasis in his latest play is firmly on reflective, philosophical musings rather than laughs for their own sake.
It’s a pretty esoteric subject, too – an imagined meeting between the poet WH Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten in 1972 as they both head towards decline and death. It’s framed in the theatrical device of a play within a play, with the set-up of a National Theatre rehearsal room in which a misunderstood playwright is struggling to keep control of his script in the hands of the increasingly rebellious actors.
What really shines in Nicholas Hytner’s impressive production, now on a nine-week national tour, is the performances. Desmond Barrit as Auden (or at least the actor playing Auden) is wonderfully ebullient, obnoxious and declamatory, while Malcolm Sinclair offers a delightful foil as Britten and the cynical hack portraying him.
The magnificent and enormous set (Bob Crowley) offers a perfect recreation of the rehearsal room, and the 13-strong cast are permanently on stage, as if watching the run-through in real life. Selina Caddell, as the stage manager trying to hold things together in the absence of the director, spars entertainingly with Matthew Cottle, whose actor character is struggling to ‘catch’ the essence of his role in the play, resorting in desperation to a hilarious drag-act tuba performance.
And if the theatrical navel-gazing sometimes feels an in-joke too far, or the resolution seems a little self-indulgent on Bennett’s part, there’s no detracting from the fine work on display from a company and a director at the top of their game.
HAIRSPRAY
September 22, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, October 9, 2010, then tour continues
JUST stop for a moment, consider all the wonderful things you’ve heard about the musical Hairpsray, then double them. It’s hard to find the superlatives to praise this fabulous show enough.
It’s irrepressible, infectious, incredibly upbeat and impossible to leave without a smile on your face.
It starts with the script, adapted by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan from the 1988 cult movie by John Waters about the oversize schoolgirl with ideas above her station who makes it big in spite of being big. Throw in the sensational, every-one’s-a-hit score by Marc Shaiman, and you’ve got the raw material for success.
When you add tight direction from Jack O’Brien and some breathtakingly energetic choreography by Jerry Mitchell, the layers of quality and excellence are building nicely.
Finally, top up with a magnificent pit band under musical director Mark Crossland and a stage full of stunning performers at the top of their game, and you’ve got a surefire sell-out three-week run.
The cast is huge and utterly flawless. From the smallest chorus part to the biggest principal, the commitment and dedication shown by these largely young singers and dancers are simply superb, the talent evident in abundance.
Among the main players, Wayne Robinson provides an extraordinary voice and presence as the young, gifted and black Seaweed, while Sandra Marvin almost steals the show as his mother, Motormouth Maybelle.
But all eyes ultimately are on the Turnblad family, the optimistic Tracey, her supportive dad Wilbur and larger-than-life mum Edna. Laurie Scarth is a real find as the tubby teenager with tall hair and puts heart and soul into her wonderful performance. Topping the bill as Wilbur and Edna are Les Dennis and a fantastically dragged-up Brian Conley, who bring the house down with the sort-of love duet Timeless To Me. Without overplaying it or mugging up indecently for the audience, they bring warmth and genuine affection to the relationship, as well as some hilarious comedy.
If you saw the West End production with Michael Ball, you’ll probably have been blown away by it. I can do no more than advise you: this is better.
QUARTET
Monday, July 26, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, July 31, 2010, then tour continues
IT’S very hard to watch this piece of theatre about four ageing opera singers in their twilight years without more than a touch of poignancy. Part of it has to do with the fact that the quartet are played by four ageing actors in their twilight years. Part of it is the sheer tenderness with which playwright Ronald Harwood portrays them.
Between them, Timothy West, Susannah York, Gwen Taylor and Michael Jayston have more years of on-the-boards experience than any of them would probably care to count. Their natural professionalism and command of their art is a joy to watch, and they’re clearly having a ball in this four-hander set in a retirement home for past-it performers.
But there’s no getting away from the fact that they’re all – how can I put this politely? – getting on a bit, and when there’s the odd stumble over a line or ad-lib to cover a forgotten prop, it only adds to the slight clenching of the buttocks in the stalls. Is this a brilliant representation of declining old age or the wheeling out of some bankable but slightly wobbly stars for one last tour together?
There’s no doubt it’s an ingenious, thoughtful, gently provocative script and director Joe Harmiston presumably had as easy a job as he’ll ever encounter, allowing his four names their run of the elegantly designed set (courtesy of Simon Scullion).
There are moments of belly-laugh humour and touches of emotional depth about the performances, too, with West in particular a consummate master of comedy. The foursome’s laboured struggle – both literally and metaphorically – towards a one-off reunion performance of the quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto is beautifully pitched and peaks in a simple but wonderfully affecting finale, aided by some judicious lighting by Ben Cracknell.
Notwithstanding that rather uneasy undercurrent of reality impinging on the unfolding story, this is a production of charm, wit and warmth that is a fine tribute to – and by – its veteran cast.
BEDROOM FARCE
Monday, July 12, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, July 17, 2010, then tour continues
SIR Peter Hall knows a thing or two about Ayckbourn. In particular, he knows a thing or two about Bedroom Farce, having co-directed the National Theatre’s original London production with the playwright in 1977.
Now, courtesy of producer Bill Kenwright, he has revisited the work and is taking it on tour after a successful run in the West End.
As its name implies, it has moments of high comedy and plenty of bedroom action. That most of it is to do with anything other than sex is typical of Ayckbourn.
Four couples, three bedrooms, two disastrous parties and one bad back make up the components, which Ayckbourn weaves with his customary genius and dexterity to offer a painful portrait of relationships in various stages of disintegration.
Hall’s production gives us the three bedrooms square on, occasionally losing some of the complexity of the unfolding action in the process, but Peter Mumford’s lighting and the costumes of Mark Bouman and Mia Flodquist serve their purpose superbly, with the mid-70s setting perfectly evoked.
Although billed as a husband-and-wife acting couple, Juliet Mills and Maxwell Caulfield play roles that barely interact at all, each ‘married’ to other people in the play and with him confined to bed with that back. Both put in strong performances at either side of the stage, while most of the farcical aspects roll out in the bedroom between them, that of Malcolm and Kate, the young couple throwing a housewarming party that is ruined by the warring Trevor and Susannah.
Ayden Callaghan and Julia Mallam are touchingly naïve as Malcolm and Kate, while Oliver Boot and Natasha Alderslade go suitably manic with their scrapping pairing.
Clare Wilkie is solid as the put-upon wife of the bedridden Nick, while there’s gravitas and experience from Bruce Montague as the bewildered, old-fashioned stickler Ernest.
The production sometimes lacks pace, and the delivery tends towards the stilted at times, but there are lots of laugh-out-loud moments and a genuine sensitivity to the cleverness of the script. It’s good, traditional comic fare and will no doubt generate considerable acclaim on its tour round the regions.
OKLAHOMA!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, July 3, 2010, then tour continues
THE first Broadway collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers and writer Oscar Hammerstein II was to change the face of musical theatre for ever. Oklahoma! is sometimes argued to be lightweight in comparison with their later classics – Carousel, The King And I, The Sound of Music – but on the basis of this solid touring production, the allegation seems unfounded.
On the face of it, this tale of cowboys and farmers in the vanguard of midwest American colonisation may amount to little more than a frolic over who is going to squire little Laurey to the box social. In fact, Hammerstein’s book, underscored by a fabulously clever Rodgers score, is much darker and more weighty than just that.
The strongest example lies in the subplot of the farmhand Jud – superbly played here by a brooding Pete Gallagher – whose menacing presence results in a highly-charged Act One dream ballet finale.
The crucial leads of Curly and Laurey are beautifully executed too, with Your Country Needs You finalist Mark Evans mixing just the right amount of downhome charm and boyish good looks as he plays romantic games with the diminutive but delightful Gemma Sutton. There’s real chemistry between the two and a genuine sense of some of the wildness of the wild west.
Star name Marti Webb is reassuringly professional in the lynchpin role of Aunt Eller, while a vast supporting cast throng the stage with life and colour and talent whenever there’s a hoedown to be had.
The orchestra may be a little over-reliant on three keyboards’ synthetic strings and the comic parts overplayed to the point of discomfort, but there’s enough youthful vigour and fantastically memorable tunes to keep you humming all the way home.
LAUGHTER IN THE RAIN
Monday, June 7, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, June 12, 2010, then tour continues
YOU might think, on the face of it, that there’s not a great deal of meaty material to be had from the Neil Sedaka story. The writer and producers of Laughter in the Rain appear to have come to the same conclusion.
In fact, the redoubtable singer-songwriter has had his fair share of trials – from growing up with an extended family in two rooms in Brooklyn, via his mother’s extra-marital affair, to his run-in with the US government over a decade of unpaid tax – so it seems doubly odd that this Sedaka-lite narrative chooses to treat them all as a mild irritation on one man’s journey to the stars.
The fact that Sedaka himself is described as a “consultant” to this show probably explains a lot, together with the programme note that the writer, Philip Norman, is a “close friend”. Whatever the reason, it leaves a fundamental emotional hole where the drama should be.
Having said all that, and taking the lack of storytelling content into account, there’s a huge amount to enjoy in this romp through the back catalogue, and the audience at Milton Keynes was certainly prepared to go with every sequin-studded scene.
At its heart is an utterly compelling and winning performance by Wayne Smith as Sedaka himself, at turns charming and driven, and displaying the most lyrical tenor voice I’ve heard on a stage for a long time. Smith is a fine actor, too, and carries the whole show by sheer force of his talent and warmth.
There’s a multitude of support from a large cast, doubling up in a host of different roles along the way. Edward Handoll stands out as Sedaka’s songwriting partner Howie Grenfield and Kieran Brown puts in nice spots as Tony Christie and Elton John.
But the real winner is the six-piece on-stage band, led by Pierce Tee, which is never less than spot-on with its lush arrangements and fizzing energy, and provides much of the momentum when the show finally does catch light deep into the second act.
Primarily aimed at Sedaka fans – of whom there have always been plenty in the UK – this production, directed by Bill Kenwright and Keith Strachan, is glitzy, gorgeous and good fun. And if it’s not going to win any prizes for storytelling, maybe it makes up for it with its musical pedigree. At least, Milton Keynes didn’t seem too bothered…
STEPPING OUT
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, June 5, 2010, then tour continues
SOMETIMES you get the feeling that producers wheel out long-standing stars in revivals of once-successful shows just for the sake of it.
Here’s a prime case in point: Anita Harris – who should probably have been made a Dame years ago (and not of the panto variety) – is currently doing the rounds in what’s billed as the “25th Anniversary production” of “the award-winning comedy” Stepping Out.
Given that Anita Harris could probably pull the crowds hanging from a wire and pretending to be a boy – oh, hang on, she did that in Peter Pan, didn’t she? – it seems odd to be casting her in the most unlikeable role in this easy-going, gentle trip out.
Richard Harris (no relation, as far as I know) penned this episodic snapshot of a dysfunctional tap-dance class apparently at the prompting of his wife, who suggested the hoofers at his local community centre might provide an amusing topic for a play.
Amusing, maybe. Sustainable over two and a half long hours? Less convincing. Still funny after 25 years? Unfortunately, the laughs don’t stand the test of time well, and there’s little more than some sub-Last of the Summer Wine humour for most of the evening. Much of this comes from sight gags, too, which always raises alarm bells about the comedy value of a script.
The 11-strong cast are somewhat variable in their audibility, and suffer almost universally from the writer’s over-reliance on caricature, rather than character. Thus, one has a verbal tic, another is large and clumsy, one is black and another – hilariously – a man.
The unfortunate Brian Capron – he of Coronation Street villainy – is lumbered with delivering this two-dimensional creation, whose motivation is never clear and whose actions appear spuriously grafted on to generate what little dramatic tension there is to be found.
At best, it’s harmless and mildly amusing. But that’s hardly enough to justify either the resurrection of an ageing script or the unworthy exploitation of a respected performer.
THE HISTORY BOYS
Monday, May 17, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, May 22, 2010, then tour continues
THERE’S no doubting the capacity of this Alan Bennett play to move, provoke and challenge assumptions about all sorts of things – education, the role of the teacher, the rampant arrogance of teenage boys and even nascent homosexuality.
I’m not sure it quite deserves the status of masterpiece, as is so often hung on it, but it’s certainly got humour, pathos and plenty to think about.
In this co-production between Bath Theatre Royal and the West Yorkshire Playhouse, currently touring the country, the tale of eight post-A level students being prepared for Oxbridge entrance exams by two very different teachers is played out efficiently and effectively, with laughs and tears in all the right places.
At the heart of it is the maverick teacher Hector, bluffly portrayed by Gerard Murphy as a well-meaning mother hen who takes his affection for his pupils just that bit too far. Opposite him, in so many ways, is new teacher Irwin (Ben Lambert), drafted in by the headmaster to coach the boys to Oxbridge success and simultaneously undermine the wayward methods of Hector.
Thomas Wheatley as the headmaster and Penelope Beaumont as the sole female voice, world-weary teacher Mrs Lintott, add maturity and weight as the representatives of flawed authority. But it’s the eight ‘boys’ who make the most impact, as Bennett clearly intended they should, striking exactly the right pitch of smart-mouthed impetuousness, pushing the boundaries with their elders and finding their place among their peers.
Christopher Keegan is boisterous as the cheeky chappie Timms, Rob Delaney proves a fine musician as well as actor, thumping out tunes on an on-stage piano, while Kyle Redmond-Jones judges the predatory heartthrob Dakin to perfection, leading on both his classmates and his teachers with just the right measure of tease.
But most impressive of all is James Byng as Posner, the runt of the class, whose lovelorn looks at Dakin and subtle hints at victimhood are beautifully played. He displays a superb singing voice, too, which only adds to the poignancy of his torn heart.
I have one or two quibbles with director Christopher Luscombe’s staging, which includes an irritating revolve and some dreadful sightlines at times, but the overall result is a tribute to Bennett’s cleverness at working his audience and the skill and judgement of a fine group of actors.
WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND
April 26, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, May 1, 2010, then tour continues
FOR once, I really don’t know where to begin. Is it with this curious beast of a show, neither Lloyd Webber musical nor Jim Steinman epic? Is it with the vast, sprawling Bill Kenwright production, with throngs of pointless crowds filling the stage uncomfortably? Or is it with the hugely variable performances, where wavering pitch and nasal delivery compete with crystal-clear soprano and powerful ensemble work?
It’s such a mystifying concoction, for all sorts of reasons, that rating it proves almost impossible.
Most people’s awareness of the story, of course, will come from the 1961 black-and-white film starring Hayley Mills, in which a group of children find a criminal hiding out in their barn and mistake him for Jesus Christ. Normally I wouldn’t divulge a plot in its entirety, but with this story, that’s it. So sorry.
On such a slight frame is built this bizarre musical theatre version, with the great Lord employing the services of hit Meatloaf songwriter Steinman as his lyricist. As a result, we also get classic Steinman motifs of motorcycles, disaffected youth and the pangs of teenage love. Unfortunately, Lloyd Webber’s music is never quite up to the Meatloaf type of song at which Steinman excels. Conversely, when the musical maestro’s compositions are at their finest and most complex, the facile lyrics let them down badly.
This mismatch extends to the performances, where Carly Bawden offers an underpinning central figure as Swallow, the eldest of the three siblings in whose barn most of the action takes place. She’s strong, sweet, naïve and touching in just the right measures, and has able support from understudy Sarah McNicholas as her sister Brat.
Elsewhere, vocals are patchy, while G4 star Jonathan Ansell as the criminal clearly has range and technique, but struggles to convey depth of emotion or three-dimensionality, leaving a gap where the heart of the show should be.
It’s another big production from Kenwright, who also directs, but sheer numbers on stage and an impressive set are not enough to compensate for a score that’s flat and uninspired by Lloyd Webber standards and a book in which characters’ motivations are bewildering or simply non-existent.
ENJOY
April 13, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, April 17, 2010, then tour continues
ALAN Bennett has become the usual vehicle these days for the trotting out of the hackneyed phrase “national treasure”. And indeed, if you look at his output from, say, the past 15 years, there are lots of gently amusing, professionally northern pieces that lend weight to that argument.
It was not always so. Bennett was once a failure. And it happened with this play, Enjoy, which was poorly received by both critics and audiences when it first opened in 1980.
It probably doesn’t help that Bennett himself admits that it’s far too long, he doesn’t really know what it’s about, and he can’t even explain why it’s called Enjoy.
All of which rather raises the question why director Christopher Luscombe and the producers at Theatre Royal Bath thought it would be a good idea to exhume this most curious of pieces and give it a national tour.
Certainly there are opportunities for the central performers, Alison Steadman and David Troughton, who play a crusty old couple living in the last back-to-back streets in Leeds and looking forward (or not) to being moved to a new flat so the bulldozers can steam in.
Both actors have a field day with their characters, Mam and Dad, but the rest of the large cast are given painfully thin characterisations to work with, and the plot device is barely enough to sustain an entire evening. It’s almost as if Bennett had one bright idea – of converting a slum terrace into a museum piece – and then struggled manfully to make a whole night of it.
There aren’t really any of the big laughs we’ve come to expect from his particular type of humour, either, leaving it more Last of the Summer Wine than the tradition of biting satire from which he emerged in the Sixties.
It’s an odd, understated piece which doesn’t seem to know what it wants to say, and aside from some entertaining fireworks between the two central players, never really warms up. Mind you, with the Bennett name attached, the house was full, so the Bath team are probably not complaining.
CALENDAR GIRLS
March 15, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, March 27, 2010, then tour continues
YORKSHIRE scenery, gentle, harmless humour and some set-piece moments of visual farce. It could be The Last of the Summer Wine, but it isn’t.
In fact, it’s the stage adaptation of the highly successful 2003 film, which told the story of the Women’s Institute branch that shed their inhibitions – and their clothes – in the name of charity.
It’s been a big success on the London stage, too, with Tim Firth’s play featuring a host of star names prepared to display their talents in the interests of comedy. Now the show is on the road, with a tour scheduled into next year and showcasing a rolling list of celebrity actresses.
In the case of Milton Keynes, these include Lynda Bellingham and Jan Harvey as the two close friends who almost fall out over the nude charity calendar. Alongside them are familiar telly faces including Letitia Dean, Gemma Atkinson and Hannah Waterman, all of whom end up tastefully topless at some point, in case you were wondering.
This may have something to do with the runaway ticket sales, although it should be noted that – as with the original calendar itself – there is nothing titillating to be seen, and the photo shoot itself is purely there for the service of some high comic moments.
The performances are varied, from the confidently professional Ms Bellingham to the slightly caricatured Ms Dean, but it’s too miserly to cast aspersions about the heart of this piece – which is so clearly in the right place that any criticism borders on the cynical.
It’s warm, it’s chuckle-inducing and it’s utterly harmless. It may not have the depth of a theatrical masterpiece, but who’s really going to complain? After all, The Last of the Summer Wine is still running after nearly 40 years, so those Yorkshire folk must have something right.
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG
February 24, 2010
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, March 13, 2010
WHEN this show was running in the West End, with a succession of star names in the big roles, Michael Ball was reported as complaining that it was hard being upstaged by a piece of machinery every night.
Well, the car’s still there, even if the big names aren’t, as the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang takes to the road – or should that be skies? – for a second time.
Now I was never a huge fan of the original 1968 film, in spite of its pedigree: based on a story by Ian Fleming, co-written by Roald Dahl and produced by the James Bond man Cubby Broccoli. But its score – by Disney veterans Richard and Robert Sherman – won an Oscar nomination and it is undoubtedly loved by many.
The same can probably be said for the stage version, which received a delighted reception at press night and had the audience clapping along.
It’s certainly spectacular (to use the vernacular) and director Adrian Noble and designer Anthony Ward have spent a lot of the budget on how the whole thing looks. Sets are sumptuous, costumes colourful and props elaborate. There also appear to be hundreds of people on stage at times, which makes for a vibrant, exciting look, not to mention the pack of real-life dogs that almost steal the show from the car.
If the performances are a little uninspired, the characterisations rather flat and the comedy broadly scattergun in its approach, it hardly detracts from the epic scale of the piece and the infectious thrill of a huge band in the pit.
And there’s no denying the wonder of a car that really flies – oh yes it does – with all the magic that theatre can muster. The children in the audience aren’t the only ones with wide eyes.
CINDERELLA
December 13, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until Sunday, January 17, 2010
THOSE folk at First Family Entertainment have really got Christmas sussed.
They’ve figured out exactly what works best for a firecracker of a festive panto, and they’re prepared to throw money at it to make it sparkle.
The tasty recipe starts with a corny-but-classic script from veteran panto writer Eric Potts (also penning about a dozen others around the country this year), then stirs in plenty of laughs with a dazzling pair of ugly sisters, Chris Dennis and David Langham.
There’s some classy singing and dancing courtesy of West End star Louise Dearman as Cinders and a well-drilled troupe of villagers to delight any eye. And it’s marinated with some TV talent in the shape of smiley Anthea Turner as the fairy godmother and a top-form Bobby Davro securely steering the ship as Buttons.
For some reason, Mickey Rooney has decided he likes Britain in winter and has returned to repeat the Baron Hardup performance he gave the Sunderland Empire two years ago – though why this 89-year-old Hollywood legend feels the urge to totter out on stage every half-hour, utter a couple of lines, sit down for a bit then totter off again, is as much a mystery as why the theatre management should want to make him do it. Still, as Davro acknowledges, he’s a genuine superstar, so let’s not complain.
As always in Milton Keynes, the sets and costumes (Terry Parsons), lighting (David Howe) and music (Matthew Reeve) all make outstanding contributions to a polished, professional, traditional and utterly delightful experience.
If it all feels a little production-line manufactured, maybe that’s a small price to pay for the best-dressed, sparkliest, ho-ho-ho-inducing panto in the region. Again.
DREAMBOATS AND PETTICOATS
November 16, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, November 21, then tour continues
JUKEBOX musicals have become something of a hackneyed formula these days, plundering an artist’s back catalogue for some old hits to string onto a flimsy storyline, to the extent that the description has almost become an insult.
Cue comedy legends Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran to the rescue.
The writing partnership with their very own back catalogue of TV hits – from Shine On Harvey Moon to The New Statesman, via Birds of a Feather, Goodnight Sweetheart and a host of others – have saved the sub-genre from mediocrity.
Invited by the record company owners to use tracks from their Dreamboats and Petticoats hit compilation albums for raw material, the duo have turned their hand to writing a stage musical. And done so in utterly winning style.
Their tale of tortured teenage romance within the walls of a 1961 youth club may be about as fresh as a pair of Billy Fury’s crepe shoes, but the raw energy and infectious enthusiasm they bring to it is every bit as lively and exciting as the kids who play it out in the theatre.
And that’s the other fantastic bit of news about this rollicking rock ’n’ roll show: the on-stage band simply blows the audience away. None of your pre-recorded backing tracks here – these are totally live, immaculately performed and utterly thrilling renditions of some of the best-known and loved songs of the era, woven seamlessly into the fun, frothy confection of Marks and Gran’s witty book.
Stand-out performers include Peter Gerald as the reminiscing older Bobby, Josh Capper as his younger self and Lauren Hood as the plain-Jane little sister Laura, while the actor-musicians creating the songs provide a superb back line throughout – including the show-stealing drummer (there’s a phrase you don’t use very often) Daniel Graham.
Direction from old hand Bob Tomson and some authentic choreography by Carole Todd keep the momentum building to a toe-tapping, unstoppable finale that brings the crowd inevitably – and willingly – to their feet.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
October 28, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, November 14, then tour continues
IT seems an awfully long time since Connie Fisher won that first search-for-a-West-End-star telly show, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?
In those three years or so, she’s played the part several hundred times, both in London and now on tour. And she still lives up to her original on-screen pledge to play every performance as if it was opening night.
There’s no doubting her talent, her sincerity and her eagerness. She loves the role. And, with more than a hint of Julie Andrews charm in her portrayal, she looks as comfortable in the wimple as if she had been born to it.
The rest of the show is built around her, from Michael Praed’s curiously low-key Captain Von Trapp – who seems slightly too hidebound by the formality of his Austrian naval background – to the light touches of the Mother Abbess and the other convent dwellers.
And if everything seems a little underpowered, maybe that can be put down to the long run – by touring standards, at any rate – which sees the Rodgers and Hammerstein favourite harbouring in MK until the middle of November.
It’s a perfectly workmanlike show. The children are delightful, the thankless part of Max Detweiler amusingly inhabited by Martin Callaghan, and Margaret Preece and Jacinta Mulcahy perform admirably as the Abbess and Baroness Schraeder respectively.
It looks big – the sets and sheer numbers in the cast are both expansive – and sounds terrific, with a superb orchestra under the baton of Jonathan Gill wringing every nuance out of the sumptuous score.
So the overriding feeling of something a little less than the sum of its parts is hard to pin down. There’s no shortage of enthusiasm and talent, and lovers of the film will find plenty to amuse and entertain. And yet the memory of the ecstatic reception given to Connie when she first won the part leaves a sensation of something oddly missing from the overall spectacle.
Or maybe I’ve just got a heart of stone...
THE PITMEN PAINTERS
October 20, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, October 24
WHEN people talk about Liverpool playwrights, there often seem to be only two: Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale. The same is rapidly becoming the case for Lee Hall and Tyneside.
The man behind Billy Elliot has been picked up and championed by the literati, and his latest work, The Pitmen Painters, is now being toured by the Royal National Theatre, although its cast is virtually intact from its origins at the Live Theatre in Newcastle.
It tells the true story of the Ashington Group, a club of miners who decided they wanted to learn about art in the 1930s, and whose subsequent efforts with the brush became acclaimed for their gritty realism and natural, untutored style.
Hall plays up the grim realities of the northern mining community, contrasting its poverty and working-class socialism with the upper-class caricature of their posh lecturer, Robert Lyon. The first half is immensely powerful and touching, with the miners struggling to come to terms with this strange new world and at odds with themselves over how to react to art.
In the second, which concentrates more on the individual story of one of the men, Oliver Kilbourn, there is a shift towards sentimentalism, and as soon as one feels manipulated by the hand of the playwright, the power disperses, reducing the potentially moving finale to a mawkish political statement.
None of this detracts from the excellence of the production, directed by Max Roberts and designed evocatively by Gary McCann.
All the performances are razor-sharp and rehearsed to perfection, and the interplay between the miners in particular is acutely judged and dazzlingly played.
It’s an evening of rich humour, considerable passion and more than a hint of sadness at a lost world with lost values.
THE STRIPPER
September 22, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until September 26, 2009
IT was a quarter before ten in a ritzy part of town. I’d just spent a couple of hours under cover with some well-dressed types, watching a bunch of crooners and hoofers in a new musical entertainment with the catchy handle of The Stripper.
This wiseguy O’Brien – Richard O’Brien – had taken a pulp fiction novel set in 1961 California, thrown a few jazzy numbers at it with a tunesmith named Richard Hartley, and put it up there on a stage for guys like me to spit at.
Like a dame in a Playboy centrefold, it looked good on paper. It had a pedigree longer than a Royal Corgi, some wisecracking one-liners with all the punch of a Smith and Wesson, and a central character played by Jonathan Wrather who could charm the pants off your maiden aunt.
And that was when it hit me: somebody killed the show. But who? And, more important for a dick like me, how?
I ran through the list of suspects. First up, the crooners. Nope – that Wrather kid was at the front of a queue of talent giving it all they’d got. Next up, the band. No dice: six crazy guys blowing their horns as tight as a strumpet’s corset.
The finger was pointing elsewhere. And there was a smoking gun in the hands of the technical crew. It had a smell. The cruel smell of conspiracy. The sticking set, the mistimed sound effects, the lousy vocal mix: it all added up to a lethal cocktail.
But still there was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind. Sure, these things were dangerous to a performer’s health, but were they really to blame?
Suddenly, from the shadows, a grinning figure stepped out. I should have known it all along – O’Brien. And right behind him came his director, Bob Carlton, waving the success of Return to the Forbidden Planet as his badge.
The show never stood a chance. Saddled with a lame plot, some painful lyrics besides the firecrackers, and a score full of almost great tunes that never quite made it out of the box, The Stripper was done for. It didn’t want to die – that was as plain as a bar of Bournville – but the heart wasn’t there.
I watched as the well-dressed types turned away and hurried off into the dark. It had been a sobering night. And I needed a drink.
RAIN MAN
September 14, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until September 19, 2009
CELEBRATING its tenth anniversary this year, it’s hard to argue with the calibre of top names that Milton Keynes Theatre is able to draw.
With a new season just unveiled that includes Connie Fisher in The Sound of Music, Bobby Davro headlining panto and the National Theatre on tour, there are stars aplenty and some big shows coming to the city of roundabouts.
Hot from a highly successful and acclaimed run London’s West End, the stage adaptation of hit movie Rain Man is the latest to arrive, complete with autistic turn from Men Behaving Badly star Neil Morrissey.
Having proved with Waterloo Roadthat he can do straight acting, Morrissey here stretches his range still further with a strong evocation of the part that Dustin Hoffman so memorably created on celluloid. And the characterisation is an eye-opener.
Besides the tics and quirks so carefully delivered in this fascinating performance, Morrissey brings a real warmth and depth to the character of Raymond, the autistic savant whose $12 million inheritance from his father incurs the wrath of a younger brother, Charlie, who hadn’t even known of his existence.
As Charlie, Oliver Chris is a fast-talking, cold-hearted embodiment of ambition whose journey – both geographical and emotional – with Raymond sees him unfurl and find his own true nature as well as that of his brother. The two performances are mutually complementary, endlessly illuminating and full of intelligence.
Dan Gordon’s script adaptation is inevitably somewhat episodic, with occasionally cumbersome sets slowing up the pace and vigour of the brothers’ road trip, while Hoffman and Tom Cruise are always going to be tough acts to follow.
But there’s a genuine soul at the heart of director Robin Herford’s production that carries it through any shortcomings and makes this more than simply an exercise in star casting.
DUET FOR ONE
September 8, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until September 12, 2009
MAYBE it’s something to do with the credit crunch, but some of the country’s top performers seem to be increasingly prepared to show off their skills around the regions these days.
Milton Keynes played host earlier this year to the dream pairing of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in the pre-West End tour of Waiting For Godot. Now it’s the turn of acting giants Juliet Stevenson and Henry Goodman.
The pair have hit the road after a highly successful London run in Tom Kempinski’s two-hander Duet For One. And the talent is an absolute joy to behold.
Stevenson, who seems to be able to command any emotion at the drop of a hat, whether on stage, film or television, gives a masterclass performance as Stephanie Abrahams, a concert violinist struggling to come to terms with the multiple sclerosis that has ended her career.
Almost entirely wheelchair-bound, Stevenson transcends the limitations of her physical confinement to plumb the character for all the richness of her tormented agonising. It’s painful, perfectly judged and utterly superb to watch.
Goodman plays her psychiatrist, Dr Feldmann, as an irritating know-it-all with hidden depths of his own emotion, which are slowly wrought to the surface by Stevenson’s verbal grappling. The gradual peeling off of the shrink’s layers is carefully paced, neatly executed and completely believable.
What is less certain is the strength of the raw material. Kempinski’s 1980 play won all sorts of awards and was turned into a film with Julie Andrews, but the memory of a searing, terrifying analysis of dealing with disease is not quite realised with this production, which originated at the Almeida.
Director Matthew Lloyd appears very hands-off, to his credit, and the psychiatrist’s treatment room is magnificently rendered by designer Lez Brotherston. But the passion expressed by the two participants is rarely matched by the dialogue, which now feels to have a tendency towards the pedestrian.
For all its faults, this is an elegant, classy show with a lot of depth and two beautiful performances at its heart.
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
May 20, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until May 23, 2009
TALK about a tough act to follow. The film version of Singin’ in the Rain is an iconic piece of 20th century entertainment history, and Gene Kelly’s splashing tap dance through the puddles is regularly voted one of the greatest movie moments of all time.
Even the stage version, adapted as late as 1980 by the original screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, itself became a landmark production, giving Tommy Steele one of his biggest hits in a hit-filled career.
Now UK Productions are taking the show out on the road again, complete with those fabulous song-and-dance numbers, a superbly drilled live band and, yes, buckets of rain.
Stepping into the two-tone tap shoes is experienced leading man Tim Flavin – not quite a name of John Barrowman proportions, but with all the qualifications and bags of talent. He evokes Kelly’s matchless warmth and ease with understated charm, and both his voice and his feet are unquestionably up to the job.
The winning Flavin plays Don Lockwood, a silent movie star struggling to make the transition to the Talkies. Unfortunately, he’s held back by his co-star Lina Lamont, whose squeaky, irritating voice will spell the end of her career if a solution isn’t found.
That solution comes in the form of sweet-voiced Kathy Selden, who gamely dubs Lamont’s role on screen and naturally steals Don’s heart.
Jessica Punch makes a pleasant Kathy, the physical exertions of the role proving well within her capabilities.
But it’s Don’s sidekick Cosmo Brown – his long-term double-act partner and friend – who nabs the real glory, not unlike the underrated Donald O’Connor in the film.
Cosmo is played by the hugely talented and likeable Graeme Henderson, who also choreographs the show with more than a nod to Kelly’s screen direction. As a performer, Henderson is relaxed, confident and oh so nimble in a part that inherently plays second fiddle to the central pairing. But he also makes use of many of the film’s icons – the lamppost, the sofa tipping over, the clown routine in Make ’Em Laugh – to display a considerable flair on the other side of the footlights.
Director Alison Pollard, of course, has her own part to play in the way the show rattles along through its witty script and luscious numbers, and the resulting production is glossy, smooth and joyous. From the opening notes of the overture, you just can’t help whistlin’ that tune, tappin’ those toes and… well, singin’ in the rain.
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
May 11, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until May 16, 2009
HOWARD Ashman and Alan Menken are perhaps the most influential writers of American musicals in the past half century.
Who? Well, they wrote The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast for Disney, and before Ashman’s untimely death at the age of 40 in 1991, they had turned round the company’s fortunes and almost single-handedly revived the glory days.
Little Shop of Horrors had been their first major success back in 1982, based on a Roger Corman B movie and later transformed into a cult film itself. Now it’s touring the UK again in a production that originated at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, which is fast building a reputation as the home of imaginative, revitalising revivals of half-forgotten classics.
The tale of a rundown florist’s shop in Skid Row, whose nerdy skivvy Seymour breeds a bloodthirsty, man-eating plant he calls Audrey II (after his secret love), is a flimsy piece of nonsense in itself. What lifts it to cult status is the work of the writer and composer, whose nifty little pop numbers and clever, witty lyrics are as fresh and biting today as they were nearly 30 years ago.
In director Matthew White’s production, the design by David Farley gives us a fabulously seedy Skid Row and a brilliantly realised Audrey II, amazingly brought to life by puppeteer Andy Heath.
Damian Humbley is a dorky but loveable Seymour, Clare Buckfield a sweet and sympathetic Audrey, and Alex Ferns camps it up outrageously in the Steve Martin role of the evil dentist Orin Scrivello, whose horrible antics come to a grisly end in the finale of Act One.
But it is the plant itself which always steals this show, and the extraordinary voice of Clive Rowe – who rightly emerges for a curtain call – is perfectly suited to this ‘mean, green mother from outer space’. From its first appearance as a foot-high plant pot to its all-singing, all-dancing finale in which it completely fills the stage, Audrey II is the star.
With the help of a really strong pit band under musical director Toby Higgins – although some of the sound balance makes it painfully hard to hear the singers – it’s easy to see why the show gets the enthusiastic reception it does.
AN INSPECTOR CALLS
April 28, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until May 2, 2009
IT’S hard to believe that this production has been around for almost 20 years now. Can there be any theatregoing folk left who haven’t caught up with it yet?
Well actually, yes. And I’m one of them. Although it’s equally hard to believe that I have somehow missed out on this amazing piece of theatre for this long.
Director Stephen Daldry’s version is widely credited with having rescued a 20th century masterpiece from the dreary doldrums of the rep circuit, miraculously transforming JB Priestley’s 1945 play from safe standby to, in the words of The Guardian’s Michael Billington, “urgent expressionist nightmare”.
And even after all this time on various West End stages and at least half a dozen tours, the show still packs a huge wallop, with its extraordinary set and powerful political allegory.
Daldry’s designer Ian MacNeil creates a vision of bleak post-war austerity, all shadows and smog, in the centre of which he places an Edwardian house on stilts, where the warm gaslight and upper middle-class pseudo-morality of the occupants look down – literally – on the working classes outside.
But as the titular Inspector invades this world and dissects it piece by piece through his incisive questioning, so the trappings of respectability disintegrate and the façade comes crashing down.
The Birling family members – each of whom, it unfolds, has had a part to play in the tragic suicide of a young girl – are uniformly excellent. David Roper and Sandra Duncan provide gravitas as the parents, Robin Whiting and Marianne Oldham are touchingly fragile as brother and sister Eric and Sheila, while Alisdair Simpson is nicely pompous as Sheila’s fiancé Gerald.
Louis Hilyer is, perhaps, less convincing as Inspector Goole, with a studiedly eccentric performance of tics, swoops and sudden shouts, but it’s hard to say how much of this is down to the direction and how much a misplaced effort to distinguish the mysterious copper from his quarry.
In any event, it’s the power of the play and the striking visual presentation of the director’s concept that carry the real weight in a production that looks set to keep on rolling for a good while yet.
GOD OF CARNAGE
March 24, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until March 28, 2009
WITH the play Art, Yasmina Reza put three people in a room together to philosophise about… well, art.
With God of Carnage, the French playwright puts four people into a room together to philosophise about… Actually, the obscurity of the title is a clue: this is a much less clear-cut piece of writing.
Ostensibly, it brings together two sets of parents, one of whose sons has supposedly bullied the other at school. The four are here to sort out the problem in a grown-up, amicable way.
The fact that in the space of 90-odd minutes with no interval they are reduced to slinging insults and scenery at each other amid the wreckage of a ruined Parisian apartment is, presumably, meant to say something about the childishness of adults or the innate violence of humanity.
And if Reza’s point (in Christopher Hampton’s translation) is less successfully made than in Art, and the whole thing feels as if it wants to be far more powerful than it actually is, the fault does not lie with the actors, each of whom plays their part in the gradual disintegration.
Richard E Grant invokes the spirit of Basil Fawlty at times in his portrayal of Alain, an uptight prig of a lawyer with one ear semi-permanently clamped to his mobile. As his wife Annette, Serena Evans turns in a well-judged performance, pitched between doormat and defiance.
In the opposite corner, Lia Williams as Veronique heads progressively for the borders of hysteria, while Roger Allam takes top honours as her husband Michel, ranging enthusiastically between referee and rum-soaked stirrer.
Director Mathew Warchus keeps things moving with pace and style on a blood-red set designed by Mark Thompson, and if the play itself struggles to move as a drama or amuse as a comedy, there’s no shortage of energy and commitment from the four players.
WAITING FOR GODOT
March 16, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until March 21, 2009
IF you want to find a more complete, sublime and classic example of theatrical excellence, you’ll have to go a pretty long way to beat this highly anticipated production.
Director Sean Mathias has assembled surely the dream cast of all dream casts for a revival of arguably the 20th century’s most seminal play. The result is triumphant on all possible counts.
Patrick Stewart can occasionally be a little lugubrious for my taste, but his pivotal performance as Vladimir, one of the two dishevelled tramps doing the titular waiting, is as fine a model of theatre acting as you could hope to see. He displays a wonderful deftness of touch with the comedy, matched by deep pathos in the more affecting passages, and he commands the stage every moment he’s there.
Beside him, Ian McKellen turns in an equally masterful performance as his partner, Estragon, his timing judged to perfection and his mannerisms acutely studied. Together they’re a peerless double act – a fact they understand and acknowledge, even down to the Flanagan and Allen routine at the rapturous curtain call.
But there’s more. Two veteran stalwarts of the profession, Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup, are on hand to lend meaty support in the difficult roles of Pozzo and Lucky, whose interruption of the waiting helps provide an uneasy passing of the time. Callow is majestically over the top as the bombastic Pozzo, while Pickup – in the toughest job of the four – offers a bizarre creation of dominated slavery with the aid of just his physical presence and one extraordinary monologue.
Among an evening of stunning dramatic quality, there are plenty of highlights, from the inspired precision with which Stewart and McKellen deliver Samuel Beckett’s carefully poetic dialogue to the decaying grandeur of Stephen Brimson Lewis’s amazing set.
At its heart, director Mathias retains a clear and defining sense of Beckett’s exploration of the absurd and nonsensical, creating as a result an utterly comprehensive, beautiful and flawlessly performed piece of theatre.
PACK OF LIES
March 9, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until March 14, 2009
NEARLY 50 years have passed since the events on which this play are based occurred in a leafy London suburb. At the time, with the Cold War raging, the notion of one’s friends and neighbours turning out to be Soviet spies must have seemed chilling.
Here, in veteran writer Hugh Whitemore’s adaptation of his own 1971 television play, the domesticity of the family drama is sharply contrasted with the world-shattering implications of treachery.
A stellar cast includes Jenny Seagrove, nervously fragile as housewife Barbara, whose life is first taken over, then torn apart, by the shadowy government agents who use her home as a surveillance post to watch the suspect neighbours, her best friends Helen and Peter.
Barbara’s husband Bob, played sympathetically by Simon Shepherd, struggles to protect his wife and teenage daughter in the tension between loyalty to the nation and loyalty to their friends.
Lorna Luft makes a brash appearance as Helen, while Daniel Hill – best known as Harvey from the TV sitcom Waiting for God – is the sinister authority figure of Stewart.
Among these central characters, Shepherd and Seagrove’s husband and wife emerge most convincingly as three-dimensional creations, trying to get their heads round the scale of the problem with which they have been confronted.
Unfortunately, the play itself can’t seem to get its head round it, and the very contrast of domestic drama with international espionage is what ultimately brings it down. Despite a beautifully accurate period set (Julie Godfrey), it’s all somehow too small. As the plodding narrative unfolds with implacable predictability, nothing much really happens and the characters are forced to reveal exposition and motives through monologues delivered straight out front – always a device that risks the criticism of cheating the audience.
Coupled with some leaden direction (Christopher Morahan) that leaves the actors too often standing square to each other delivering stiff lines, the production seems dated and pedestrian – a double disappointment given the dynamite nature of the source material.
COPPELIA March 6, 2009
Russian State Ballet of Siberia, Milton Keynes Theatre until March 7, 2009
HELL, as Jean-Paul Sartre cheerily remarked, is other people. Maybe I should have listened to my sixth sense when the orchestra began tuning up. Most of my other five were certainly in for it.
I’ve not had a happy time. A woman nearby was wearing one of those overpowering, headache-inducing perfumes apparently designed specifically to assault one’s sense of smell. Somebody further along my row insisted on tapping their foot through the more rhythmic sections, sending an irritating shockwave through the floor, while the woman next to me rapped her long fingernails against the plastic glass she was holding.
All of which had the effect of seriously impairing my ability to take in what was occurring on stage and in the orchestra pit. Perhaps I should be grateful.
The Russian State Ballet of Siberia is touring the UK with a repertoire that includes Swan Lake, Giselle and The Nutcracker. This performance was Coppelia, surely the flimsiest excuse ever dreamed up for a man to wear tights, but drenched with lush Delibes tunes. At least, that was the theory.
To its credit, it was colourful. The huge corp seemed enthusiastic, in a Siberian kind of way, and I’m told the prima ballerina did a pretty good job. Never having jeteed in my life (outside the privacy of my own home), I’m not entirely qualified to comment.
What I could, as a layman, tell perfectly well was that the performance suffered an alarming lack of precision, which meant that ballerinas dancing in pairs or trios were too often slightly out of synch with each other, and the big ensemble sections looked just a little bit ragged round the edges.
This was echoed – indeed, amplified – in the pit where, among other things, a quarter-tone mistuned horn persisted throughout in rendering the beautiful music almost painful. Fingers down a blackboard could not have induced more nervous tension in the listener, and what should have been a visual and aural delight became instead an ordeal of survival. Thank God nothing happens in the second act and it’s all over in half an hour.
Sight, sound, smell and touch, all set on edge – which leaves taste. Let’s just say it wasn’t to mine.
THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK
February 23, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until February 28, 2009
THERE’S never really any doubt about the main attraction of The Witches of Eastwick, and the curtain-call whistles and whoops for Mr Marti Pellow merely serve to confirm the fact.
The Wet Wet Wet frontman leads the touring company in the role of the devil, here known as Darryl Van Horne, as he wreaks his special brand of randy havoc in the 1950s smalltown American community of Eastwick.
Inspired by the film which was based on the John Updike novel, this version has all the required elements of a proper Broadway musical – a fine score from Dana P Rowe, intelligent (if occasionally hard to hear) lyrics and book by John Dempsey, and a well-drilled staging from director Nikolai Foster.
Other plusses include an evocative set and costumes from designer Peter McKintosh and a brassy 10-piece pit band under the sound, confident baton of Tom Deering.
On stage, too, there are some excellent performances, notably from the trio of women who fall under Darryl’s evil spell. Ria Jones, Rebecca Thornhill and Poppy Tierney work terrifically as individuals and an ensemble and give the piece much of its coherence and pace, while there’s a superb cameo from Rachel Izen as the town busybody Mrs Gabriel.
Ultimately, of course, the success of the show rests on the horny devil at its heart, the part played most memorably by Jack Nicholson in the movie, and created in the West End by Ian McShane. Pellow has a deeply warm and sensuous singing voice, which is displayed to great effect in his musical numbers, but the decision to play Van Horne in a highly stylised, animalistic fashion makes it curiously awkward and exposes too many weaknesses in the delivery of dialogue and interplay with his co-stars.
Not that his many fans in the audience were bothered in the slightest. They were here to see their idol getting down and dirty, and he delivers in spades on that score.
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE SPONGE WHO COULD FLY
February 18, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until February 21, 2009
SUBLIME? Ridiculous? I’ve been to both ends of the spectrum this week. But if you’d asked me before Flashdance or Brief Encounter what I was likely to enjoy most, I doubt I’d have been saying Spongebob Squarepants.
But the reality is that this is a fabulous, fun-filled freak of a show with all the anarchic, off-the-wall humour of its cartoon original and a bunch of great songs besides.
Neatly timed to run at a child-friendly 90-odd minutes, it’s packed with all the wacky characters of Bikini Bottom (if you don’t have an under-10 you can skip this bit), from a lovable Patrick to a rather worryingly accurate Squidward, with Spongebob himself cavorting merrily in those square pants – and sometimes out of them – in his quest to fulfil his dream of flying with the jellyfish in Jellyfish Fields.
Mr Krabs, owner of the Krusty Krab, gets the best musical number, with a fantastic Broadway-style routine about the mighty dollar, entitled Kerching! But there are plenty of other smart and sassy songs sprinkled liberally through the production, raising it to a quality level far above your average children’s show.
All the things that make the Nickelodeon TV series so outstanding – the high production values, the perfectly judged puerile humour, the sharp wit to please the grown-ups – are replicated in this stage version.
I’d love to be able to give credit to the utterly dedicated 10-strong cast and superb crew who make the two-dimensional characters live and breathe, but unfortunately there is neither a programme nor a cast list available. They will have to take their plaudits in anonymity.
Suffice it to say that Spongebob Squarepants, against all expectations, snuck in and stole the title of Highlight of the Week. Now, all together: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
PETER PAN
December 8, 2009
Milton Keynes Theatre until January 18, 2009
MILTON Keynes has got something of a reputation to live up to. For a couple of years now, it’s stood head and shoulders above everything else within booing distance when it comes to good old-fashioned traditional panto.
Admittedly, much of that has had to do with the extraordinary comic talents of Bradley Walsh. But credit must also go to the producers, directors and enthusiastic casts that have built up and maintained that reputation.
The bad news is that Bradley Walsh is this year plying his trade elsewhere. The good news is that everything else about this production yells quality, with all the volume and chaos a cavern full of pre-teen kids can muster.
No expense has been spared – again – on the sets and costumes, with sparkling design by Terry Parsons and some superbly executed choreography by Bill Deamer.
Peter Denyer’s beautifully adapted script is as intelligent a panto as you’re likely to find, and in the hands of director Ian Talbot and his feisty, well-drilled team, it’s one to sit back and enjoy, even if it does run a tad too long.
Pirates and Indians all excel at singing, dancing and acting – no mean feat in itself – while at the helm are the safe hands of Andy Ford as Smee and vintage baddie Henry Winkler in the crimson robes of Captain Hook.
Ford keeps things rattling along entertainingly, even during the normally dragging front-cloth scenes, while Winkler keeps a commendably straight face as he plays his part to the hilt.
Former EastEnder and Strictly contestant Louisa Lytton is pleasant enough in the title role and there are laughs a-plenty to keep both kids and bigger kids amused.
Bradley may have been a tough act to follow, but the Fonz and his shipmates have just about pulled it off.
THE NUTCRACKER
November 25, 2008
Milton Keynes Theatre until November 29, 2008, then touring until December 31.
IT’S almost December and we’ve already had snow: what more justification do you need for a production of The Nutcracker?
And if you’re going to stage Tchaikovsky’s ballet as a festive entertainment, why not go the whole hog and throw in every snow effect and twinkly bauble you can think of?
Artistic director David Nixon certainly plays the traditional card with Northern Ballet Theatre’s touring show, and with something as well-loved as The Nutcracker, it’s hard to argue with the logic.
There are some fresh twists too, with Nixon’s own set and costume designs accentuating vivid – even lurid – colours and some distinctly contemporary moves among the dance steps themselves.
Performances are a mixture of the delightful – there’s a particularly nice pairing between Clara and her nutcracker soldier, although the programme fails to identify individual dancers by their roles – and the rather severe, with the magical uncle Drosselmeyer coming across as more than a little sinister, which is unfortunate.
But there is much to please the eye, particularly when the string of musical classics rolls out in the second act for the dancers’ party pieces. The ear is entertained too by a large orchestra which – while occasionally struggling with fine tuning – plays a vital part in creating that almost sensual feeling of a rich, rounded performance.
As a taster for the festive season, complete with Christmas lights, pink tutus and a chocolate-box production, this Nutcracker is a pretty safe bet.
THE WOMAN IN BLACK October 20, 2008
Milton Keynes Theatre until October 25, 2008, then touring until November 29.
A CLASSIC piece of Gothic theatricality has been running in the same West End theatre for nearly 20 years and is now working its chilling magic on audiences nationwide, courtesy of this touring production.
In some ways, it’s hard to see why the stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s ghostly melodrama has proved so enduring. It’s solid, workmanlike stuff, cleverly adapted by Stephen Mallatratt and effectively directed by Robin Hereford.
But it hardly ranks among the all-time masters of the genre – from Henry James to Stephen King – with its heavy dependence on smoke and mirrors and deafening screams for its power to terrify.
Having said all that, there’s no question there are claustrophobic chills to be evinced, even in a cavernous auditorium such as Milton Keynes.
Much of the credit for this must go to the two players, Sean Baker and Ben Porter, whose convincing portrayals of Edwardian gents playing out the ghost story add both menace and humour to what could otherwise be pretty standard schlock-horror fare.
Lighting and sound (Kevin Sharp and Rod Mead) play a crucial role too, and are efficiently employed to heighten the tension, despite hints of a little cheesiness at times.
The trick with this kind of show is to let the audience know they’re being manipulated, but to keep them wanting it. Baker and Porter clearly recognise this and trade on it stylishly. It’s a wonder they can sleep at night…